1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to a novel device for organizing, storing, and dispensing garment hangers.
The device of the present invention will find its greatest utility wherever large quantities of garment hangers are used, such as in clothing factories, retail clothing stores, dry cleaning plants, and the like.
Heretofore, the handling of garment hangers on a large scale has been a random and haphazard affair with the hangers usually piled helterskelter in a heap either on the floor or in small storage containers, such as cardboard boxes. To separate a hanger from such a confused heap is a frustrating and time consuming task since the hangers generally become snarled with other hangers inviting breakage and generally making a tangled mess of the entire matter. Since these hangers should be readily available when needed, anything other than systematic handling presents a condition which if not dangerous, is at least inefficient and inconvenient.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In an effort to provide an efficient means for managing what has been previously been a haphazard situation for storing garment hangers, there have been patented numerous garment hanger handling devices. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,918,174, issued to Tabbi, discloses a rack preferably mounted on a movable dolly in which the rack comprises a number of vertically disposed rods mounted between a pair of plates in which the rods engage and support a stack or stacks of garment hangers. U.S. Pat. No. 4,016,981, issued to Hildt, discloses a rack for storing clothes hangers having a plurality of elongated posts extending upwardly and spaced so as to engage each side edge of the neck portion of the hanger, the under edge of the neck portion of the hanger and the under side of the two shoulder portions of the hanger. U.S. Pat. No. 3,692,188, issued to Bayne, discloses a stand for storing and displaying clothes hangers including a vertical standard engaging the under edge of the neck portion of the hanger and which has a spring supported bracket thereon which supports a rack upon which the clothes hangers are stacked so that as the weight of the stack of clothes hangers varies, the vertical position of the rack varies accordingly. A vertical guide means engaging the shoulder portion of the clothes hangers extend on each side of the vertical standard. U.S. Pat. No. 2,454,858, issued to Burt, discloses a garment hanger bin which is divided into a plurality of triangular-shaped compartments, each compartment contains a vertical guide rod which engages the hanger hook, the partitions separating the bin into compartments function to retain a plurality of hangers placed on the guide rod in substantial vertical alignment. U.S. Pat. No. 3,490,599, issued to Von Maur, discloses a clothes hanger receptacle which comprises an elongated member containing a hook-shaped slot extending its entire length for receiving the hook portion of the clothes hanger.
While these prior art garment hanger organizing devices greatly assist in bringing order to what heretofore has been an inefficient and inconvenient situation, such devices do not enable the rapid stacking of garment hangers thereon and still enable each hanger to be stacked in the same direction so as to avoid entanglement of the hangers and provide efficient dispensing of the hangers from the support surfaces. Likewise, many of the prior art devices are not provided with easy access to the support surfaces. For example, in the patent to Tabbi, the user must reach underneath a top plate and grope in order to place the hanger neck hook on the guide surfaces which are not visible. Furthermore, prior art garment hanger storage devices cannot be unloaded rapidly and efficiently and still stack the hangers in a neat manner so as to be readily available when needed and which allows the immediate reloading of the device.